Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Life is a lot like salmon fishing….

Several years ago now I and a buddy went salmon fishing with a guide. You know, one of those guys that has the really cool boat, all the awesome stories and for 150 bucks a person guarantees you’ll catch a fish big enough to put on your wall. (as if my wife would ever actually let me put a fish on the wall inside our house)

We met up at some small diner in the foothills where in addition to handing over our 300 dollars he allowed us to buy him breakfast while he regaled us with story after story of how this season was the best he remembered, and how he pitied the poor idiots that had to schlep into an office every day….(wait, did he just insult us, the guys paying his rent?)

Anyway, after filling our bellies with thick chunk bacon and home fries like you can only find in small towns up in the hills, we headed out to the launch, loaded up in his boat and headed up river at a rate that I’m pretty sure would be considered speeding on any highway till we got to the “exact spot”. And here we sat for most of the day baking in the sun and listening to stories about how earlier in the week people couldn’t keep the fish off their lines….until….All of a sudden my buddy Sean’s rod slammed down and his reel started screaming as line peeled off faster than a fat guy running towards a donut shop.

This of course triggered several responses. I immediately began to, a) hate Sean, b)work on a plan to knock him overboard and grab his fishing rod and c) build a story in my head as to why this was all justified. (yep, I’m a multi-tasker)
Sean on the other hand just started yelling and swearing and hanging on for dear life.
The professional, much to his credit, having seen all this before calmly released his anchor, started the motor and began following the fish downstream all the while telling us both to Calm the F%*# Down! (evidently he isn't opposed to cursing like I am)

Eventually, as I continued my plotting, Sean continued his hanging on and the professional continued following the fish, we hit a slow part of the river, guided both fish and boat into an eddy and boated the fish….a very nice 20+lb salmon.
So, what does a fishing story have to do with a cycling blog? Well, nothing really. It’s just that this past week has been kind of a rough one in our family for a lot of different reasons and this story popped in my head.
Life really is like salmon fishing. Sometimes, when things are cruising along all nice and calm there are things that happen that create huge amounts of stress and chaos. We in turn, can respond to those situations in a number of different ways…..scream and swear, plot and plan or we can untie the anchor, relax, hang on and see where things go….and to be honest, sometimes hanging on is all you can do….